LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIF"T  OK 


C/ass 


THE  Hir.II  ("RIMI-  OF  XOT 


A  SERMON, 


PREACHED   AT    THE    BROOKLYN   TABERNACLE, 
FEBRUARY  25TH,  1877. 

>   ^j      m     »       r    *_    ^          ^ 


BY 


REV.   T.   DEWITT    TALMAGE,    D.D., 

OF    BROOKLYN. 


This  discourse  is  No.  7  of  a  series  of  Serrnorjs  lo  the  Professions  aijd  Occupations,  ijanjely : 

The  Medical  Profession,  Commercial  Travelers, 

The  Legal  Profession,  Insurance  Men, 

The  Theatrical  Profession,  Merchants, 

The  Newspaper  Profession,  Mechanics, 

Clerks  of  Stores.  Telegraph  Operators,  etc.,  etc. 


NFAV    YORK: 
S.  W.   GREEN,   PRINTER,  16  AND  iS    JACOB    STREET. 

1877. 


THE  HIGH  CRIME  OF  NOT  INSURING. 


A   SERMON, 


PREACHED  AT  THE  BROOKLYN  TABERNACLE, 

FEBRUARY   25TH,    1877. 


DY 


REV.  T.  DEWITT  TALMAGE,  D.D., 

OF   BROOKLYN. 


This  discourse  is  No.  7  or  a  series  of  Sermons  to  tlje  Professions  arjd  Occupations,  palely : 

The  Medical  Profession,  Commercial  Travelers, 

The  Legal  Profession,  Insurance  Men, 

The  Theatrical  Profession,  Merchants, 

The  Newspaper  Profession,  Mechanics, 

Clerks  of  Stores,  Telegraph  Operators,  etc.,  etc. 


NEW  YORK: 
S.  W.  GREEN,  PRINTER,  16  AND  18   JACOB   STREET. 

1877. 


THE  HIGH  CRIME  OF  NOT  INSURING. 


"  Let  him  appoint  officers  over  the  land,  and  take  up  the  fifth  part  of 
the  land  of  Egypt  in  the  seven  plenteous  years." 

THESE  were  the  words  of  Joseph,  the  President  of  the 
first  Life  Insurance  Company  that  the  world  ever  saw. 
Pharaoh  had  a  dream  that  distracted  him.  He  thought  he 
stood  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Nile,  and  saw  coming  up 
out  of  the  river,  seven  fat,  sleek,  glossy  cows,  and  they 
began  to  browse  in  the  thick  grass.  Nothing  frightful  about 
that.  But  after  them,  coming  up  out  of  the  same  river, 
he  saw  seven  cows  that  were  gaunt  and  starved,  and  the 
worst  looking  cows  that  had  ever  been  seen  in  the  land, 
and  in  the  ferocity  of  hunger  they  devoured  their  seven 
fat  predecessors.  Pharaoh  the  king  sent  for  Joseph  to 
decipher  these  midnight  hieroglyphics.  Joseph  made 
short  work  of  it,  and  intimated  :  "  the  seven  fat  cows  that 
came  out  of  the  river  are  seven  years  with  plenty  to  eat ; 
the  seven  emaciated  cows  that  followed  them,  are  seven 
years  with  nothing  to  eat ;  now,"  said  Joseph,  "  let  us 
take  one  fifth  of  the  corn  crop  of  the  seven  prosperous 
years,  and  keep  it  as  a  provision  for  the  seven  years  in 
which  there  shall  be  no  corn  crop."  The  king  took  the 
counsel  and  appointed  Joseph,  because  of  his  integrity  and 


4  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

public-spiritedness,  as  the  President  of  the  undertaking. 
The  farmers  paid  one  fifth  of  their  income  as  a  premium. 
In  all  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  land  there  were  branch 
houses.  This  great  Egyptian  Life  Insurance  Company  had 
millions  of  dollars  as  assets.  After  a  while  the  dark  days 
came,  and  the  whole  nation  would  have  starved  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  provision  they  had  made  for  the  future. 
But  now  these  suffering  families  have  nothing  to  do  but 
go  up  and  collect  the  amount  of  their  life  policies.  The 
Bible  puts  it  in  one  short  phrase  :  "  in  all  the  land  of 
Egypt  there  was  bread."  I  say  this  was  the  first  Life  In- 
surance Company.  It  was  divinely  organized.  It  had  in 
it  all  the  advantages  of  the  "  whole  life  plan,"  of  the  "  Ton- 
tine plan,"  of  the  "  reserved  endowment  plan,"  and  all  the 
other  good  plans.  We  are  told  that  Rev.  Dr.  Anhate,  of 
Lincolnshire,  England,  originated  the  first  Life  Insurance 
Company  in  1698.  No.  It  is  as  old  as  the  corn  cribs  of 
Egypt,  and  God  himself  was  the  author  and  originator. 
If  that  were  not  so,  I  would  not  take  your  time  and  mine 
in  a  Sabbath  discussion  of  this  subject. 

I  feel  it  is  a  theme  vital,  religious,  and  of  infinite  im- 
port— the  morals  of  Life  and  Fire  Insurance.  It  seems  to 
me  that  it  is  time  for  the  pulpit  to  speak  out.  We  are 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  insurance  agitation.  The  air  is 
full  of  charges  of  mismanagement  and  fraud.  We  hear 
of  bogus  agents  who  have  been  arrested  ;  of  receivers 
appointed  to  take  refractory  companies  into  their  cus- 
tody :  of  grand  juries  who  have  indicted  other  companies 
for  perjury ;  and  of  a  company  which  had  in  its  hand  the 
prospective  support  of  many  widows  and  orphans,  that  is 
charged  with  a  deficit  of  near  a  half  million  dollars.  So 
great  has  been  the  agitation,  that  there  are  some  people 


THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT    INSURING.  5 

who   have   denounced   all  Life   Insurance  Companies  as 
impious,  and   a   nuisance   that   needed  to  be  squelched. 
Against  this  Life  Insurance  panic,  in  the  name  of  God  and 
the  best  interests  of  society,  I  solemnly  protest.     In   all 
businesses  and  occupations  there  are  failures  and  losses  and 
dishonesties.     Ninety-eight  out  of  one    hundred    men  in 
every  kind  of  business  fail.     In  1857,  there  were  at  least 
eight  thousand  failures  in  various  styles  of  merchandise. 
Are  these  failures  any  thing  against  traffic  in  dry-goods,  or 
groceries,  or  hardware  ?     And  shall  you  allow  failures,  or 
ill-behavior  on  the  part  of  three  or  four  Insurance  Compa- 
nies, to  kindle  suspicions  in  regard  to  the  most  magnificent 
institution  which  has  ever  existed  for  the  temporal  support 
and  the  earthly  welfare  of  the  human  race?     It  is  easy 
enough  to  denounce  Life  Insurance  Companies  and  demand 
that  they  call  in  their  loans  until  all  the  agricultural  and 
mercantile  and  manufacturing  and  ecclesiastical  interests  of 
the  land  are  shipwrecked ;  but  is  it  fair  thus  to  treat  the 
prince  of  humane  institutions  ?   Where  does  that  institution 
stand  to-day?     What  amount  of  comfort,  of  education,  of 
moral  and  spiritual  advantage,  is  represented  in  the  simple 
statistic  that  in  this  country  the  Life  Insurance  Companies, 
in  one  yedr,  paid  seventy-seven  millions  of  dollars  to  the 
families  of  the  bereft;  and  in  five  years  they  paid  three 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  to  the  families  of  the  bereft ; 
and  are  promising  to  pay,  and  hold  themselves  in  readi- 
ness   to    pay,   two   thousand   millions   of   dollars   to   the 
families  of  the  bereft.     They  have  actually  paid  out  more 
in  dividends  and  in  death  claims  than   they   have   ever 
received  in  premiums.   I  know  of  what  I  speak.    The  Life 
Insurance  Companies  of  this  country  have  paid  more  than 
seven  millions  of  dollars  of  taxes  to  the  Government  in  five 


6  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

years.  So,  instead  of  these  companies  being  indebted  to 
the  land,  the  land  is  indebted  to  them.  Now,  I  say  that  a 
man  who  will  raise  a  panic  against  these  companies  for 
the  reason  that  three  or  four  of  them  have  not  behaved 
well,  is  as  preposterous  as  a  man  who  should  burn  down  a 
thousand  acres  of  harvest  field  in  order  to  kill  the  moles 
and  the  potato  bugs ;  as  preposterous  as  a  man  who 
should  blow  up  a  crowded  steamer  mid  Atlantic,  for  the 
purpose  of  destroying  the  barnacles  on  the  bottom  of  the 
hull. 

But  what  does  the  Bible  say  in  regard  to  this  subject  ? 

If  the  Bible  favors  the  institution,  I  will  favor  it ;  if  the 
Bible  denounces  it,  I  will  denounce  it.  In  addition  to  the 
forecast  of  Joseph  in  the  text,  I  call  to  your  attention 
Paul's  comparison.  Here  is  one  man  who  through  ne- 
glect fails  to  support  his  family  while  he  lives,  or  after 
his  death.  Here  is  another  man  who  abhors  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  rejects  God  and  Christ  and  every  thing  good. 
Which  of  these  men  is  the  worse  ?  Well,  you  say,  the 
former.  Paul  says  the  latter.  Paul  says,  that  a  man 
who  neglects  to  care  for  his  household  is  more  obnox- 
ious than  a  man  who  rejects  the  Scriptures.  Timo- 
thy, 5th  chapter  and  8th  verse :  "  He  that*  provideth 
not  for  his  own,  and  especially  those  of  his  own  house- 
hold, is  worse  than  an  infidel."  Life  Insurance  Com- 
panies help  most  of  us  to  provide  for  our  families 
after  we  are  gone  ;  but  if  we  have  the  money  to  pay  the 
premiums  and  do  not  pay  the  premiums,  we  have  no  right 
to  expect  mercy  at  the  hand  of  God  in  the  judgment. 
We  are  worse  than  Tom  Paine,  worse  than  Voltaire,  and 
worse  than  Shaftesbury.  The  Bible  declares  it — we  are 
worse  than  an  infidel.  After  the  certificate  of  death  has 


THE   HIGH   CRIME  OF  NOT   INSURING.  7 

been  made  out,  and  the  thirty  or  the  sixty  days  have 
passed,  and  the  officer  of  a  Life  Insurance  Company 
comes  into  the  bereft  household  and  pays  down  the  hard 
cash  on  an  insurance  policy,  that  officer  of  the  company 
is  performing  a  positively  religious  rite,  according  to  the 
Apostle  James,  who  says :  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled 
before  God  and  the  Father  is  this :  To  visit  the  fatherless 
and  widows  in  their  affliction,"  and  so  on.  The  re- 
ligion of  Christ  proposes  to  take  care  of  the  temporal 
wants  of  the  people  as  well  as  the  spiritual. 

Just  after  the  battle  of  Antietam  there  was  a  man  found 
distributing  religious  tracts,  and  a  Christian  merchant 
came  up  to  him  and  said,  "  What  are  you  distributing 
tracts  here  for?  There  are  three  thousand  men  out 
yonder  who  have  not  had  their  wounds  bound  up,  and 
they  are  bleeding  to  death.  You  go  and  bind  up  their 
wounds  and  then  distribute  the  tracts."  I  think  that  was 
good,  healthy  gospel.  When  Hezekiah  was  dying,  the 
injunction  came  to  him :  "  Set  thy  house  in  order,  for  thou 
shalt  die,  and  not  live."  That  injunction  in  our  day  would 
mean,  "  Make  your  will ;  settle  up  your  accounts ;  make 
things  plain ;  don't  deceive  your  heirs  with  rolls  of  Jay 
Cooke's  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  bonds ;  don't  deceive 
them  with  deeds  for  wild  lands  that  will  never  yield 
any  crop  but  chills  and  fever ;  don't  leave  for  them  notes 
that  have  been  outlawed,  and  second  mortgages  on  prop- 
erty that  will  not  pay  the  first :  set  thy  house  in  order." 

That  is,  fix  up  things  so  your  going  out  of  the  world 
may  make  as  little  consternation  as  possible.  See  the 
lean  cattle  devouring  the  fat  cattle,  and  in  the  time  of 
plenty  prepare  for  the  time  of  want. 

The  difficulty  is,  when  men  think  of  their  death  they 


8  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF  NOT   INSURING. 

are  apt  to  think  of  it  only  in  connection  with  their  spirit- 
ual welfare,  and  not  of  the  devastation  in  the  household 
which  will  come  because  of  their  emigration  from  it.  It 
is  meanly  selfish  for  you  to  be  so  absorbed  in  the  heaven 
to  which  you  are  going,  that  you  forget  what  is  to  become 
of  your  wife  and  children  after  you  are  dead.  You  can 
go  out  of  this  world  not  leaving  them  a  dollar  and  yet  die 
happily  if  you  could  not  provide  for  them ;  you  can  trust 
them  in  the  hands  of  the  God  who  owns  all  the  harvests 
and  the  herds  and  the  flocks  ;  but  if  you  could  pay  the  pre- 
mium on  a  policy  and  neglected  them,  it  is  a  mean  thing 
for  you  to  go  up  to  heaven  while  they  go  into  the  poor- 
house.  You,  at  death,  move  into  a  mansion,  river  front, 
and  they  move  into  two  rooms  on  the  fourth  story  of  a 
tenement-house  in  a  back  street.  When  they  are  out  at 
the  elbows  and  the  knees,  the  thought  of  your  splendid 
robe  in  heaven  will  not  keep  them  warm.  The  minister 
may  preach  a  splendid  sermon  over  your  remains,  and  the 
quartette  may  sing  like  four  angels  alighted  in  the  organ 
loft;  .but  your  death  will  be  a  swindle.  You  had  the 
means  to  provide  for  the  comfort  of  your  household  when 
you  left  it,  and  you  wickedly  neglected  so  to  do. 

"  O,"  says  some  one,  "  I  have  more  faith  than  you  :  I 
believe,  when  I  go  out  of  this  world,  the  Lord  will  take 
care  of  my  family."  Yes,  He  will  provide  for  them.  Go 
to  Blackwell's  Island,  go  through  all  the  poor-houses  of 
the  country,  and  I  will  show  you  how'often  God  provides 
for  the  neglected  children  of  neglectful  parents.  That  is, 
He  provides  for  them  through  public  charity.  As  for 
myself,  I  would  rather  have  the  Lord  provide  for  my 
family  in  a  private  house,  and  through  my  own  industry 
and  fraternal  and  conjugal  faithfulness.  But,  says  some 


THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING.  9 

man,  "  I  mean  in  the  next  ten  or  twenty  years  to  make  a 
great  fortune,  and  so  I  shall  leave  my  family,  when  I  go 
out  of  this  world,  very  comfortable."  How  do  you  know 
you  are  going  to  live  ten  or  twenty  years  ?  If  we  could 
look  up  the  path  of  the  future,  we  would  see  it  crossed  by 
pneumonias,  and  pleurisies,  and  consumptions,  and  collid- 
ing rail  trains,  and  runaway  horses,  and  breaking  bridges, 
and  funeral  processions.  Are  you  so  certain  you  are 
going  to  live  ten  or  twenty  years,  you  can  warrant  your 
household  any  comfort  after  you  go  away  from  them  ? 
Beside  that,  the  vast  majority  of  men  die  poor.  Two — 
only  two  out  of  a  hundred — succeed  in  business.  Are  you 
very  certain  you  are  going  to  be  one  of  the  two  ?  Rich 
one  day,  poor  the  next. 

A  man  in  New  York  got  two  millions  of  dollars,  and 
the  money  came  so  rapidly  it  turned  his  brain,  and  he 
died  in  the  lunatic  asylum.  All  his  property  was  left  with 
the  business  firm,  and  they  swamped  it ;  and  then  the 
family  of  the  insane  man  were  left  without  a  dollar.  In 
eighteen  months,  the  prosperity,  the  insanity,  the  in- 
solvency, and  the  complete  domestic  ruin.  Beside  that, 
there  are  men  who  die  solvent  who  are  insolvent  before 
they  get  under  the  ground  or  before  their  estate  is  settled 
up.  How  soon  the  auctioneer's  mallet  can  knock  the  life 
out  of  an  estate.  A  man  thinks  the  property  worth 
$15,000;  under  a  forced  sale  it  brings  $7,000.  The  busi- 
ness man  takes  advantage  of  the  crisis,  and  he  compels 
the  widow  of  his  deceased  partner  to  sell  out  to  him  at  a 
ruinous  price,  or  lose  all.  The  stock  was  supposed  to  be 
very  valuable,  but  it  has  been  so  "  watered  "  that  when 
the  executor  tries  to  sell  it,  he  is  laughed  out  of  Wall 
street ;  or  the  administrator  is  ordered  by  the  Surrogate 


10  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

to  wind  up  the  whole  affair.  The  estate  was  supposed  at 
the  man's  death  to  be  worth  $20,000 ;  but  after  the  indebt- 
edness has  been  met,  and  the  bills  of  the  doctor  and  the 
undertaker  and  the  tombstone  cutter  have  been  paid,  there 
is  nothing  left.  That  means,  the  children  are  to  come 
home  from  school  and  go  to  work ;  that  means,  the  com- 
plete hardship  of  the  wife,  turned  out  with  nothing  but  a 
needle  to  fight  the  great  battle  of  the  world.  Tear  down 
the  lambrequins,  close  the  piano,  rip  up  the  Axminster, 
sell  out  the  wardrobe,  and  let  the  mother  take  a  child  in 
each  hand  and  trudge  out  into  the  desert  of  the  world. 
A  Life  Insurance  would  have  hindered  all  that. 

But,  says  some  one,  "  I  am  a  man  of  small  means,  and 
I  can't  afford  to  pay  the  premium."  That  is  sometimes  a 
awful  and  a  genuine  excuse  :  but  rarely.  The  answer  to 
it  is  this :  If  you  are  too  poor  to  support  your  family  and 
pay  for  a  policy  on  your  life,  you  are  too  poor  to  take 
the  chance  of  dying  and  leaving  them  deprived  of  the  sup- 
port your  brain  and  hands  supply  them.  In  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  when  a  man  says  that,  he  smokes  up  in  cigars,  and 
drinks  down  in  wine,  and  expends  in  luxuries  enough  money 
to  have  paid  the  premium  on  a  Life  Insurance  policy  which 
would  have  kept  his  family  from  beggary  when  he  is  dead. 
A  man  ought  to  put  himself  down  on  the  strictest  econo- 
my until  he  can  meet  this  Christian  necessity.  You  have 
no  right  to  the  luxuries  of  life  until  you  have  made  such 
provision.  I  admire  what  was  said  by  Rev.  Dr.  Guthrie, 
the  great  Scottish  preacher.  A  few  years  before  his  death 
he  stood  in  a  public  meeting  and  declared :  "  When  I  came 
to  Edinburgh  the  people  sometimes  laughed  at  my  blue 
stockings  and  at  my  cotton  umbrella,  and  they  said  I  look- 
ed like  a  common  ploughman,  and  they  derided  me  be- 


THE   HIGH   CRIME  OF  NOT  INSURING.  II 

cause  I  lived  in  a  house  for  which  I  paid  thirty-five  pounds 
rent  a  year,  and  ofttimes  I  walked  when  I  would  have 
been  very  glad  to  have  had  a  cab ;  but,  gentlemen,  I  did 
all  that  because  I  wanted  to  pay  the  premium  on  a  Life 
Insurance  that  would  keep  my  family  comfortable  if  I 
should  die."  That  I  take  to  be  the  right  expression  of  an 
honest,  intelligent,  Christian  man. 

The  utter  indifference  of  many  people  on  this  important 
subject  accounts  for  much  of  the  crime  and  the  pauperism 
of  our  day.  Who  are  these  children  sweeping  the  cross- 
ings with  broken  broom,  and  begging  of  you  a  penny  as 
you  go  by?  Who  are  these  lost  souls  gliding  under  the 
gaslight  in  thin  shawl  ?  Ah !  they  are  the  victims  of 
want ;  in  many  of  the  cases  the  forecast  of  parents  and 
grandparents  might  have  prohibited  it.  God  only  knows 
how  they  struggled  to  do  right.  They  prayed  until  the 
tears  froze  on  their  cheeks.  They  sewed  on  the  sack 
until  the  breaking  of  the  day,  but  they  could  not  get 
enough  money  to  pay  the  rent ;  they  could  not  get 
enough  money  to  decently  clothe  themselves,  and  one 
day,  in  that  wretched  home,  the  angel  of  purity  and  the 
angel  of  crime  fought  a  great  fight  between  the  empty 
bread  tray  and  the  fireless  hearth,  and  the  black-winged 
angel  shrieked,  "  Aha  !  I  have  won  the  day." 

Says  some  man,  "  I  believe  what  you  say  ;  it  is  right 
and  Christian,  and  I  mean  some  time  to  attend  to  this  mat- 
ter." My  friend,  you  are  going  to  lose  the  comfort  of 
your  household  in  the  same  way  the  sinner  loses  heaven, 
— by  procrastination.  I  see  ail  around  me  the  destitute 
and  suffering  families  of  parents  who  meant  some  day  to 
attend  to  this  Christian  duty.  During  the  process  of 
adjournment  the  man  gets  his  feet  wet ;  then  came  a  chill 


12  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

and  a  delirium,  and  the  doleful  shake  of  the  doctor's  head, 
and  the  obsequies.  If  there  be  any  thing  more  pitiable  than 
a  woman  delicately  brought  up,  and  on  her  marriage  day 
by  an  indulgent  father  given  to  a  man  to  whom  she  is  the 
chief  joy  and  pride  of  life  until  the  moment  of  his  death, 
and  then  that  same  woman  going  out  with  helpless  chil- 
dren at  her  back  to  struggle  for  bread  in  a  world  where 
brawny  muscle  and  ruggedness  of  soul  are  necessary — I 
say,  if  there  be  any  thing  more  pitiable  than  that,  I  don't 
know  what  it  is.  And  yet  there  are  good  women  who  are 
indifferent  in  regard  to  their  husband's  [duty  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  there  are  some  positively  hostile,  as  though  a  Life 
Insurance  subjected  a  man  to  some  fatality.  There  is  in 
this  city  to-day  a  very  poor  woman  keeping  a  small  candy 
shop,  who  vehemently  opposed  the  insurance  of  her  hus- 
band's life,  and  when  application  had  been  made  for  a 
policy  of  $10,000  she  frustrated  it.  She  would  never  have 
a  document  in  the  house  that  implied  it  was  possible  for 
her  husband  ever  to  die.  One  day,  in  the  quick  revolu- 
tion of  machinery,  his  life  was  instantly  dashed  out.  What 
is  the  sequel  ?  She  is  with  annoying  tug  making  the  half 
of  a  miserable  living.  Her  two  children  have  been  taken 
away  from  her  in  order  that  they  may  be  clothed  and 
schooled,  and  her  life  is  to  be  a  prolonged  hardship. 

O  man,  before  forty-eight  hours  have  passed  away, 
appear  at  the  desk  of  some  of  our  great  Life  Insurance 
Companies,  have  the  stethoscope  of  the  physician  put 
to  your  heart  and  lungs,  and  by  the  seal  of  some  honest 
company  decree  that  your  children  shall  not  be  subjected 
to  the  humiliation  of  financial  struggle  in  the  dark  day  of 
your  demise. 

But  I  must  ask  the  men  engaged  in  the  Life  Insurance 


THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT  INSURING.  13 

business  whether  they  feel  the  importance  of  their  trust, 
and  charge  them  I  must  that  they  need  divine  grace  to 
help  them  in  their  work.  In  this  day,  when  there  are  so 
many  rivalries  in  your  line  of  business,  you  will  be 
tempted  to  overstate  the  amount  of  assets  and  the  extent 
of  the  surplus,  and  you  will  be  tempted  to  abuse  the 
franchise  of  the  company,  and  to  make  up  for  the  deficits 
of  1877  by  adding  some  of  the  receipts  of  1878  ;  and  you 
will  be  tempted  to  send  out  mean  anonymous  circulars, 
derogatory  of  other  companies,  forgetful  of  the  fact  that 
an  anonymous  communication  means  only  two  things — 
the  cowardice  of  the  author,  and  the  inefficiency  of  the 
police  in  allowing  such  a  thing  to  be  dated  any  where 
save  inside  of  a  penitentiary.  Under  the  mighty  pressure 
many  have  gone  down,  and  you  will  follow  theni  if  you^ 
have  too  much  confidence  in  yourself  and  do  not  appeal 
to  the  Lord  for  positive  help.  But  if  any  of  you  belong 
to  that  miscreant  class  of  people  who  without  any  finan- 
cial ability  organize  themselves  into  what  they  call  a  Life 
Insurance  Company,  with  a  pretended  capital  of  $200,000 
or  $300,000 ;  then  vote  yourselves  into  the  lucrative  posi- 
tions, and  then  take  all  the  premiums  for  yourselves ;  and 
then,  at  the  approach  of  the  State  Superintendent,  drop 
all  into  the  hands  of  those  Life  Insurance  undertakers, 
whose  business  it  is  to  gather  up  the  remains  of  defunct 
organizations  and  bury  them  in  their  own  vault — then  I 
tell  you,  you  had  better  get  out  of  the  business  and  dis- 
gorge the  widows'  houses  you  have  swallowed.  But  my 
word  is  to  all  those  who  are  legitimately  engaged  in  the 
Life  Insurance  business,  You  ought  to  be  better  than  other 
men,  not  only  because  of  the  responsibilities  that  rest 
upon  you,  but  because  the  truth  is  ever  confronting  you 


14  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

that  your  stay  on  earth  is  uncertain,  and  your  life  a  mat- 
ter of  a  few  days  or  years.  Do  not  those  black-edged 
letters  that  come  into  your  office  make  you  think  ?  Does 
not  the  doctor's  certificate  on  the  death-claim  give  you  a 
thrill?  Your  periodicals,  your  advertisements,  even  the 
lithography  of  your  policies,  warn  you  that  you  are 
mortal.  According  to  your  own  showing,  the  chances  that 
you  will  die  this  year  are  at  least  two  per  cent.  Are  you 
prepared  for  the  tremendous  exigency  ?  The  most  con- 
demned man  in  the  judgment-day  will  be  the  unprepared 
Life  Insurance  man,  for  the  simple  reason  that  his  whole 
business  was  connected  with  human  exit,  and  he  can  not 
say,  "  I  didn't  think."  His  whole  business  was  to  think 
on  that  one  thing. 

4  O  my  brother,  get  insured  for  eternity.  In  considera- 
tion of  what  Christ  has  done  in  your  behalf,  have  the  in- 
denture this  day  made  out,  signed,  and  sealed  with  the 
red  seal  of  the  cross. 

But  I  have  words  of  encouragement  and  counsel  for 
those  of  my  hearers  who  are  engaged  in  the  FIRE  INSUR- 
ANCE business.  You  are  ordained  of  God  to  stand  be- 
tween us  and  the  most  raging  element  of  nature.  We  are 
indebted  to  you  for  what  the  National  Board  of  Under- 
writers and  the  convention  of  chiefs  of  the  fire  depart- 
ments have  effected  through  your  suggestions  and 
through  your  encouragement.  We  are  indebted  to  you 
for  what  you  have  effected  in  the  construction  of  build- 
ings, and  in  the  change  in  the  habits  of  our  cities ;  so  that 
by  scientific  principles  orderly  companies  extinguish  the 
fire  instead  of  the  old-time  riots  which  used  to  extinguish 
the  citizens !  And  we  are  indebted  to  you  for  the  suc- 
cessful demands  you  have  made  for  the  repeal  of  unjust 


THE   HIGH   CRIME  OF  NOT  INSURING.  1$ 

laws — for  the  battle  you  have  waged  against  incendiarism 
and  arson — for  the  fatal  blow  you  have  given  to  the  the- 
ory that  corporations  have  no  souls,  by  the  cheerfulness 
and  promptitude  with  which  you  have  met  losses  from 
which  you  might  have  escaped  through  the  technicality 
of  the  law.  I  don't  know  any  class  of  men  in  our  midst 
more  high-toned  and  worthy  of  confidence  than  these 
men  ;  and  yet  I  have  sometimes  feared  that  while  your 
chief  business  is  to  calculate  about  losses  on  earthly 
property,  you  might  without  sufficient  thought  go  into 
that  which,  in  regard  to  your  own  soul,  in  your  own 
parlance  might  be  called  "hazards,"  "extra  hazards." 
"special  hazards."  An  unforgiven  sin  in  the  soul  is 
more  inflammable  and  explosive  than  camphene  or  nitro- 
glycerine. However  the  rates  may  be,  yea,  though  the 
whole  earth  were  paid  down  to  you  in  one  solid  pre- 
mium, you  cannot  afford  to  lose  your  soul.  Do  not 
take  that  risk,  lest  it  be  said  hereafter  that  while  in  this 
world  you  had  keen  business  faculty ;  when  you  went 
out  of  the  world  you  went  out  everlastingly  insolvent. 
The  scientific  Hitchcocks  and  Sillimans  and  Mitchells  of 
the  world  have  united  with  the  sacred  writers  in  making 
us  believe  that  there  is  coming  a  conflagration  to  sweep 
across  this  earth,  compared  with  which  that  of  Chicago  in 
1871,  and  that  of  Boston  in  1872,  and  that  of  New  York  in 
1835  were  a  mere  nothing.  Brooklyn  on  fire!  New 
York  on  fire!  Charleston  on  fire!  San  Francisco  on 
fire!  Canton  on  fire!  St.  Petersburgh  on  fire!  Paris 
on  fire!  London  on  fire!  The  Andes  on  fire!  The  Ap- 
penines  on  fire!  The  Himalayas  on  fire!  What  will  be 
peculiar  about  the  day  will  be  that  the  water  with  which 
we  put  out  great  fires  will  itself  take  flame,  and  the  Mis- 


1 6  THE   HIGH   CRIME   OF   NOT   INSURING. 

sissippi,  and  the  Ohio,  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  Lake 
Erie,  and  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans,  and  tumbling 
Niagara  shall  with  red  tongues  lick  the  heavens.  The 
geological  heats  of  the  centre  of  the  world  will  burn 
out  toward  the  circumference,  and  the  heats  of  the  out- 
side will  burn  down  from  the  circumference  to  the  cen- 
tre, and  this  world  will  become  a  living  coal — the  living 
coal  afterward  whitening  into  ashes,  the  ashes  scattered 
by  the  breath  of  the  last  hurricane,  and  all  that  will  be 
left  of  this  glorious  planet  will  be  the  flakes  of  ashes  fallen 
on  other  worlds.  O !  on  that  day  will  you  be  fire-proof, 
or  will  you  be  a  total  loss?  Will  you  be  rescued  or  will 
you  be  consumed?  When  this  great  cathedral  of  the 
world,  with  its  pillars  of  rock,  and  its  pinnacles  of  moun- 
tain, and  its  cellars  of  golden  mine,  and  its  upholstery  of 
morning  cloud,  and  its  baptismal  font  of  the  sea,  shall 
blaze,  will  you  get  out  on  the  fire-escape  of  the  Lord's  de- 
liverance ?  O !  on  that  day  for  which  all  other  days  were 
made,  may  it  be  found  that  these  Life  Insurance  men  had 
a  paid-up  policy,  and  these  Fire  Insurance  men  had  given 
them,  instead  of  the  debris  of  a  consumed  worldly  estate, 
a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens ! 


